Assessing stories before sites: identifying the tangible from the intangible

Abstract

Despite a growing recognition that intangible heritage forms an important part of the significance of heritage sites, and that intangible values are intertwined with material resources and spaces, many procedures for the identification and management of heritage sites remain unchanged and fail to integrate these two sets of values. The conservation of heritage sites continues to be dominated by a process that first identifies a material site and then identifies the associated values that comprise its significance. This paper suggests that rather than identifying the physical expression of heritage as the initial point of heritage assessment, the stories (or intangible values) of a region or national history can form the primary mechanism for identifying physical heritage sites. Using the example of Australian government policies of Aboriginal segregation and assimilation, we suggest how national stories – or intangible values – might be used to identify representative sites.

Keywords:

• stories
• intangible
• heritage
• sites
• assessment
• methods
• values

Acknowledgements

The research for this paper was supported by the Australian Department of the Environment and Water Resources. We would like to acknowledge the Aboriginal people – family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances – who have shared their stories and life experiences with us over many years. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Since the original project more personal testimony has become available including video recordings made available on the internet. See for example. Stolen Generations’ Testimonies Foundation (2014).

2. Despite recent critiques of the concept of ‘race’ and its limited value in a biological context, race evolved to become a means of social organisation, and this has had long-term social implications for people defined by racial stereotypes, resulting in unequal treatment and access (Jablonski 2012; Smedley and Smedley 2005; Wade 2002).